Halleigh was in hog heaven
Halleigh was in hog heaven. She was getting presents, she was the center of attention, and she was getting married to a great guy. I didn’t think she really knew her groom that well, but I was certainly willing to believe that there were wonderful sides to Andy Bellefleur that I’d never seen or heard. cheap prom dress Andy had more imagination than the average middle-class man in Bon Temps; I knew that. And Andy had fears and desires he’d buried deeply; I knew that, too. Halleigh’s mother had come from Mandeville to attend the shower, of course, and she was doing her smiling best to support Wedding Dresses her daughter. I thought I was the only one who realized that Halleigh’s mother hated crowds, even crowds this small. Every moment she sat in Marcia’s living room was very uncomfortable for Linette Robinson. At this very moment, while she was laughing at another little sally by Elmer Claire, wedding gowns she was wishing passionately that she was home with a good book and a glass of iced tea. I started to whisper to her that it would all be over in (I cast a glance at my watch) another hour, hour-fifteen at the outside—but I remembered in time that I’d bridal wedding dress just freak her out worse than she already was. I jotted down “Selah Pumphrey—dish towels,” and sat poised to record the next gift. Selah Pumphrey had expected me to give her a Big Reaction when she’d sailed in the door, since for weeks Selah had been dating that vampire I’d abjured. Selah was always imagining I’d jump on her and whack her in the head. Selah had a low opinion of me, not that she knew me at all. She certainly didn’t realize that the vampire in question was simply off my radar now. I was guessing she’d been invited because she’d been Andy and Halleigh’s real estate agent when they’d bought their little house.
I was pretty sure I’d succeeded
Halleigh, her cheeks flushed, was struggling with the ribbon around a heavy box. I handed her a pair of scissors. There was some tradition about not cutting the ribbon, a tradition that somehow tied into predicting the number of children the cartier sunglasses bridal couple would produce, but I was willing to bet that Halleigh was ready for a quick solution. She snipped the ribbon on the side closest to her so no one would notice her callous disregard for custom. She flashed cartier frames me a grateful look. We were all in our party best, of course, and Halleigh looked very cute and young in her light blue pantsuit with pink roses splashed on the jacket. She was wearing a corsage, oakley sunglasses of course, as the honoree. I felt like I was observing an interesting tribe in another country, a tribe that just happened to speak my language. I’m a barmaid, several rungs below Halleigh on the social ladder, and I’m ghd straighteners a telepath, though people tended to forget about it since it is hard to believe, my outside being so normal. But I’d been on the guest list, so I’d made a big effort to fit in sartorially. I was ghd pretty sure I’d succeeded. I was wearing a sleeveless tailored white blouse, yellow slacks, and orange-and-yellow sandals, and my hair was down and flowing smoothly past my shoulder blades. Yellow earrings and a little gold chain tied me mini hair straightner all together. It might be late September, but it was hot as the six shades of hell. All the ladies were still dressed in their hot-weather finery, though a few brave souls had donned fall colors. ghd straighteners I knew everyone at the shower, of course. Bon Temps is not a big place, and my family has lived in it for almost two hundred years. Knowing who people are is not the same as being comfortable with them, and I’d been glad to be given the job of recording the gifts. Marcia Albanese was sharper than I’d given her credit for being. I was certainly learning a lot. Though I was trying hard not to listen in, and my little task helped in that, I was getting a lot of mental overflow.
what about the handcuffs
I was sitting beside the bride-to-be, Halleigh Robinson, since I’d been given the all-important task of recording each gift and its giver as Halleigh opened all the white-and-silver wrapped boxes and flowered gift bags. No one else seemed the least surprised that Mrs. Vaudry, a fortyish grade school teacher, was asking a bawdy question at this firmly middle-class, church lady event. “Why, I wouldn’t know, Elmer Claire,” Halleigh said demurely, and there was a positive chorus of disbelieving sniggers. “Well, now, what about the handcuffs?” Elmer Claire asked. “You tiffany jewelry ever use those handcuffs?” A fluttering of southern lady voices rose in the living room of Marcia Albanese, the hostess who’d agreed to let her house be the sacrificial lamb: the actual shower site. The other hostesses had had the lesser problems of bringing the food and the punch. “You are just something, Elmer Claire,” Marcia said from freshwater pearl jewelry her spot by the refreshments table. But she was smiling. Elmer Claire had her role as the Daring One, and the others were glad to let her enjoy it. Elmer Claire would never have been so vulgar if old Caroline Bellefleur had been present at the shower. Caroline was the social ruler of Bon Temps. Miss Caroline was vivienne westwood about a million years old and had a back stiffer than any soldier. Only something extreme would keep Miss Caroline home from a social event of this importance to her family, and something extreme had happened. Caroline Bellefleur had suffered a heart attack, to the amazement of everyone in Bon Temps. To her family, the event had not links of london been a tremendous surprise. The grand Bellefleur double wedding (Halleigh and Andy’s, Portia and her accountant’s) had been set for the previous spring. It had been organized in a rush because of Caroline Bellefleur’s sudden deterioration in health. As it happened, even before the hurried-up wedding could be held, Miss Caroline had been felled by the attack. Then Pandora聽Bracelets she’d broken her hip. With the agreement of Andy’s sister, Portia, and her groom, Andy and Halleigh had postponed the wedding until late October. But I’d heard Miss Caroline was not recovering as her grandchildren had hoped, and it seemed unlikely she ever would be back to her former self.
it wasn’t a pleasant smile
“I think that’s all that we needed to talk about with all of you present,” Andre said. The rest of the stuff he and Eric had to discuss would be done in private. Andre didn’t chanel聽handbags touch me again, which was a good thing. Andre scared me down to my polished pink toenails. Of course, I should feel that way about everyone in the room. If I’d had good louis聽bags sense, I would move to Wyoming, which had the lowest vamp population (two; there’d been an article about them in American Vampire). Some days I was sorely tempted. I whipped a little notepad out of my purse as Eric went over the date of our departure, the date of our return, the time our chartered Anubis Airline plane was arriving from Baton Rouge to pick up the Shreveport contingent, and a rundown of the clothes we would need. With some dismay, I realized I would have to go borrowing from my friends again. But Eric added, “Sookie, you wouldn’t need these clothes if it wasn’t for the trip. I’ve called your friend’s store and you have credit there. Use it.” I could feel my cheeks coach handbags redden. I felt like the poor cousin until he added, “The staff has an account at a couple of stores here in Shreveport, but that would be inconvenient for coach handbags you.” My shoulders relaxed, and I hoped he was telling the truth. Not one flicker of an eyelid told me any different. “We may have suffered a disaster, but we won’t gucci handbags go in looking poor,” Eric said, being careful to give me only a fraction of his stare. “Don’t look poor,” I made a note. “Is everyone clear? Our goals for this wholesale designer handbags conference are to support the queen as she tries to clear herself of these ridiculous charges, and to let everyone know that Louisiana is still a prestigious state. None of leather handbags the Arkansas vampires who came to Louisiana with their king survived to tell the tale.” Eric smiled, and it wasn’t a pleasant smile. I hadn’t known that before this night. replica handbags Gosh, wasn’t that convenient. 2 “H ALLEIGH, SINCE YOU’RE MARRYING A POLICEMAN, maybe you’ll be able to tell me…just how big is a cop’s nightstick?” Elmer Claire Vaudry asked.
Pam continued in her tiny whisper
Thalia, perpetually sullen and broody, gave a curt nod. “I don’t want to go, anyway,” she muttered. Her round black eyes showed nothing but contempt for the world. She had seen too much in her cheap chanel handbags very long life, and she hadn’t enjoyed herself in a few centuries, was the way I read it. I tried to avoid Thalia as much as possible. I coach bags was surprised she’d even hang with the other vamps; she seemed like a rogue to me. “She has no desire to lead,” Pam breathed into my ear. coach bags “She only wants to be left in peace. She was thrown out of Illinois because she was too aggressive after the Great Revelation.” The Great Revelation was the vampire term louis vuitton for the night that they’d gone on television all over the world to let us know that they actually existed and, furthermore, that they wanted to come replica handbags out of the shadows and into the economic and social flow of human society. “Eric lets Thalia do what she wants as long as she follows the rules and wholesale cheap handbags shows up on time for her hours at the bar,” Pam continued in her tiny whisper. Eric was ruler of this little world, and no one wholesale handbags was forgetting it. “She knows what the punishment will be if she steps out of line. Sometimes she seems to forget how little she would like that wholesale bags punishment. She should read Abby, get some ideas.” If you weren’t getting any joy out of your life, you needed to…oh, do something for others, or take COACH HANDBAGS up a new hobby, or something like that, right? Wasn’t that the usual advice? I flashed on Thalia volunteering to take the night shift at a hospice, handbag purse and I shuddered. The idea of Thalia knitting, with two long, sharp needles, gave me another frisson of horror. To heck with the therapy. “So, the only handbag purse ones attending the summit are Andre, our queen, Sookie, myself, Bill, and Pam,” Eric said. “Cataliades the lawyer and his niece as his runner. Oh, yes, Gervaise from Four and his human woman, a concession since Gervaise has been hosting the queen so generously. Rasul, as driver. And Sigebert, of course. That’s our party. I know some of you are disappointed, and I can only hope that next year will be a better year for Louisiana. And for Arkansas, which we now consider part of our territory.”
He might have been saying
Though I was looking forward to seeing something outside of my little town, I found myself wishing I could think of a way to back out of the trip to Rhodes. But months ago I’d agreed to attend this vampire summit watches as a paid employee of the queen’s. And for the past month, I’d been working long hours at Merlotte’s Bar to bank enough time so the other barmaids wouldn’t mind covering for me for a week. replica watches My boss, Sam, had been helping me keep track of my overage with a little chart. “Clancy will stay here to run the bar,” Eric said. “This human gets to go while I have to remain?” the breitling watches red-haired manager said. He was really, really unhappy with Eric’s decision. “I won’t get to see any of the fun.” “That’s right,” Eric said pleasantly. If Clancy had thought of saying something else negative, he took one replica watches look at Eric’s face and clamped down on it. “Felicia will stay to help you. Bill, you will stay.” “No,” said that calm, cool voice from the corner. “The queen requires me. I worked hard on Wholesale Watches that database, and she’s asked me to market it at the summit to help recoup her losses.” Eric looked like a statue for a minute, and then he moved, a little lift of his eyebrows. “Yes, I’d chanel watch forgotten your computer skills,” he said. He might have been saying, “Oh, I’d forgotten you can spell cat,” for all the interest or respect he showed. “I suppose you need to be with us, then. Maxwell?” “If it’s your will, rolex聽watches聽for I will stay.” Maxwell Lee wanted to make it clear that he knew a thing or two about being a good underling. He glanced around at the assemblage to underscore his point. Eric nodded. I guessed that Maxwell would get a nice toy for Christmas, and Bill—whoops, Nameless—would get ashes and switches. “Then you’ll remain here. And you, too, Thalia. But you must promise me that you will be good in the bar.” Thalia’s required tour of duty in the bar, which simply consisted of sitting around being mysterious and vampiric a couple of evenings a week, did not always go by without incident.
He’d never accepted what he was
The idea triggered a kind of mini-revelation: This was how it felt to be a normal person. I hadn’t the slightest idea of the true intentions and plans of my companions. This was how real people lived every day of polo shirts their lives. It was frightening but exciting; a lot like walking through a crowded room blindfolded. How did regular people stand the suspense of day-to-day living? “The queen wants this woman close to her in meetings, ed hardy shirts since other humans will be there,” Andre continued. He was speaking strictly to Eric. The rest of us might as well not have been in the room. “She wants to know their thoughts. Stan is ed hardy clothing bringing his telepath. Do you know the man?” “I’m sitting right here,” I muttered, not that anyone paid any attention but Pam, who gave me a sunny smile. Then, with all those cold eyes fixed NFL jerseys on me, I realized that they were waiting for me, that Andre had been addressing me directly. I’d become so used to the vamps talking over and around me that I’d been taken NFL jerseys by surprise. I mentally replayed Andre’s remarks until I understood he was asking me a question. “I’ve only met one other telepath in my life, and he was living in Dallas, so I’m supposing football shirts it’s the same guy—Barry the Bellboy. He was working at the vamp hotel in Dallas when I picked up on his, ah, gift.” “What do you know about him?” “He’s younger than me, and Football Kit he’s weaker than me—or at least he was at the time. He’d never accepted what he was, the way that I had.” I shrugged. That was the sum total of my knowledge. “Sookie will be there,” Eric told Andre. “She is the best at what she does.” That was flattering, though I faintly recalled Eric saying he’d encountered only one telepath previously. It was also infuriating, since he was implying to Andre that my excellence was to Eric’s credit instead of my own.
Andre came near enough to touch me
“If the queen had been going to the summit as the ruler of New Orleans—New Orleans as it was—I believe the sitting court would have negotiated some kind of settlement between Jennifer and the fashion shoes queen. Maybe something involving Jennifer being raised to a position of power as the queen’s deputy and getting a large bonus; something like that. But as things women's sandals are now…” There was a long silence while we filled in the blanks. New Orleans wasn’t as it had been, might never be so again. Sophie-Anne was a lame ysl shoes duck right now. “Now, because of Jennifer’s persistence, I think the court will pursue it,” Andre said, and then fell silent. “We know there’s no truth women's sandal to the allegations,” a clear, cold voice said from the corner. I’d been doing a good job of ignoring the presence of my ex, Bill. But it didn’t come yves saint laurent shoes naturally to me. “Eric was there. I was there. Sookie was there,” the vampire (Nameless, I told myself ) continued. That was true. Jennifer Cater’s allegation, designer shoes that the queen had lured her king to her party barn in order to kill him, was completely bogus. The bloodbath had been precipitated by the decapitation of one of pump shoes the queen’s men by one of Peter Threadgill’s. Eric smiled reminiscently. He’d enjoyed the battle. “I accounted for the one who started it,” he said. “The king did mbt shoes his best to trap the queen in an indiscretion, but he didn’t, thanks to our Sookie. When his plot didn’t work, he resorted to a simple frontal attack.” nike air Eric added, “I haven’t seen Jennifer in twenty years. She’s risen fast. She must be ruthless.” Andre had stepped to my right and within my line of vision, which Louboutin was a relief. He nodded. Again, all the vampires in the room made a little group movement, not quite in unison but eerily close. I had seldom felt so alien: the only warmblood in a room full of animated dead creatures. “Yes,” Andre said. “Ordinarily the queen would want a full contingent there to support her. But since we’re forced to practice economy, the numbers going have been cut.” Again, Andre came near enough to touch me, just a brush of my cheek.
the second of contact
Andre began to drift around the room soundlessly, the only indication that he was unhappy about the topic. “Do we even have that much money after the cheap ugg boots disaster?” Clancy asked. It was an unwise question. “The queen hopes the suit will be dismissed,” Andre said, again ignoring Clancy. Andre’s permanently christian louboutin teenage face was quite blank. “But apparently the court is prepared to hear a trial. Jennifer is charging that our queen lured Threadgill to New Orleans, nike shoes away from his own territory, having planned all along to start the war and assassinate him.” This time Andre’s voice came from behind me. “But that wasn’t what happened at all,” I said. And Sophie-Anne hadn’t killed the king. I’d been present at his death. The vampire standing behind me right at this moment had killed Threadgill, and I’d thought at the time he was justified. I felt Andre’s cold fingers brush my neck as I sat there. How I knew the fingers were Andre’s, I couldn’t tell you; but jordan shoes the light touch, the second of contact, made me suddenly focus on an awful fact: I was the only witness to the death of the king, Air max 90 besides Andre and Sophie-Anne. I’d never put it to myself in those terms, and for a moment, I swear, my heart stopped beating. Air max 97 At that skipped beat, I drew the gaze of at least half the vamps in the room. Eric’s eyes widened as he looked at my cheap puma shoes face. And then my heart beat again, and the moment was over as if it never had been. But Eric’s hand twitched cheap adidas shoes on the desk, and I knew that he would not forget that second, and he would want to know what it meant. “So you think shoes sandals the trial will be held?” Eric asked Andre.